


A History of Common Cabbage Farming

by darlingofdots



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Communication, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Oral Sex, Vaginal Fisting, Wholesome TM, bc nothing's sexier than talking to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28964634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingofdots/pseuds/darlingofdots
Summary: “Did you, uh, have plans for the day?”“Well,” Harrow said, adjusting the tank top so she was once again properly attired, “I thought we might try fisting again.”
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 19
Kudos: 84
Collections: TLT Kink Meme





	A History of Common Cabbage Farming

Gideon turned over in bed and got a face full of hair for the trouble.

“Pfpflbtdf,” she said, which earned her glare from her girlfriend and a poke in the ribs with a criminally pointy elbow. Thankfully, she was used to this and had, therefore, developed a considerable tolerance for elbow pokes.

“Morning, sunshine,” she said instead of yelping, and pressed a kiss to the tip of Harrow’s nose. “Sorry about waking you up.”

Harrow, the covers up to her ears, said, “Hmpf.”

It was her day off, which meant that she’d stayed up late the night before and only crawled into bed sometime in the small hours. It was the eternal tragedy of their relationship that Harrow was a certified, card-carrying night owl and Gideon had a job that required her to be up at the ass-crack of dawn to load the truck and set up the stall before normal people were even awake and fun people were only just heading to bed. She extricated her arm from under Harrow’s shoulders and slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb her any further.

“Back before you know it,” she said, kissing the mop of dark hair, before grabbing her work clothes from the hanger and disappearing into the bathroom.

There wasn’t really much point in showering before work, since she’d just get all sweaty and gross again, but she washed her face and brushed her teeth and haphazardly dragged a comb through her hair (Abigail liked her to look respectable). By the time she was ready to go, Harrow was asleep again, curled up under Gideon’s threadbare quilt and looking more relaxed than she ever did awake. With a fond smile she couldn’t suppress, Gideon pulled the quilt down over Harrow’s bare feet, shoved her feet into her boots, and left the flat.

They had an easy day at the market; Thursday wasn’t really busy most of the time anyway, and the persistent drizzle kept a lot of people away who weren’t regular customers. Gideon entertained herself by coming up with fun new ways to arrange the heirloom carrots by colour and lobbing bits of straw at Magnus’ head, which he took with remarkable indifference all the way until it was time to pack up and he generously left Gideon to do all the heavy lifting.

“That’s what you get for disrespecting your elders,” he said, shaking is finger at her, but he was grinning and he packed her a bag of reject vegetables to take home, so he clearly didn’t take it personally.

Despite the miserable weather, Gideon was in a good mood when she got back to her flat. She was sweaty and damp and chilled through, sure, but the prospect of a hot shower and an entire weekend’s worth of Random Vegetable Soup was enough to balance that out. What awaited her at home, though, put soup out of her mind entirely.

“How was work?” Harrow said, looking up from her book.

“Um,” said Gideon, dropping her keys.

Harrow had dealt with last night’s dishes and taken out the trash, which was nice of her, and two of her organic beeswax candles were burning on the windowsill and filling the dingy little studio with a rich, warm honey scent. The important part, though, was that Harrow was lounging on the bed, wearing nothing but one of Gideon’s stretched-out old tank tops, apparently engrossed in _A Brief History of Common Cabbage Farming_.

It was the hottest thing Gideon had ever seen.

She awkwardly presented the paper bag she was carrying. “I brought dinner.”

Harrow shut the book with a _thud_ and sat up against the pile of pillows with her legs crossed. The top was just long enough to cover her up, but the neckline was drooping dangerously close to forbidden territory and there had to be a whole lot of sideboob going on that Gideon couldn’t see from where she was standing which was, quite frankly, homophobic.

“Will it keep until tomorrow?”

“Uh, sure? I was just going to make soup.” Belatedly, Gideon realised she was still standing in the door like an idiot, so she used her booted foot to push it shut and went to put the vegetables away.

At the other end of the room, her girlfriend reached up to put the book on the shelf mounted above the bed. The movement shifted the fabric enough to expose a nipple. Gideon’s throat went dry.

“I thought we could order takeaway tonight,” Harrow said casually, as if there was nothing odd about any of this.

It wasn’t like Gideon hadn’t seen her naked before; they’d been dating for a couple of months and the sex was, pardon her French, fan-fucking-tastic. But there was always a ritual to it, for Harrow, to get to the point where the clothes came off. Gideon didn’t mind that — she felt incredibly honoured and proud that they had made it this far in the first place, even if Harrow preferred to keep the lights dimmed and typically reached for her shirt ten minutes after getting off. Seeing her casually _en dishabille_ like this was new and exciting and incredibly sexy, and may have short-circuited Gideon’s brain.

Belatedly, she realised she was supposed to say something. “Takeaway’s great,” she said. “Did you, uh, have plans for the day?”

“Well,” Harrow said, adjusting the tank top so she was once again properly attired, “I thought we might try fisting again.”

Gideon was extremely glad that she’d put her stuff down already; the zucchini definitely wouldn’t have survived the impact. Scraping together every last atom of suave self-assured confidence, she said, “Sure, if you want.”

She bent over to take off her work boots, conscious of the view she presented, and hoped Harrow would interpret her fumbling with the laces as her trying to put on a show. It was a good thing she hadn’t known this was coming; she probably would have crashed the truck. Not bothering with the buttons, she pulled her flannel shirt over her head and tossed it in the vague direction of the laundry hamper before leaning in to kiss her girlfriend. Harrow sighed and parted her lips, her mouth hot and welcoming, then put both hands on Gideon’s bare shoulders and pushed her away.

“Go shower,” she commanded, in a tone that went right to Gideon’s cunt. “Use the soap I got you. And dry your hair after, I don’t want more wet spots than necessary.”

This was not the fastest shower of Gideon’s life; that dubious honour must go to one of the many horrible experiences in one foster home or another, when she’d been the last person on the bathroom roster and the mould in the grouting had tried to engage her in conversation. Nevertheless, it was pretty dang fast — she washed the bits of straw and greenery out of her hair that had accumulated throughout the day at lightning speed and foamed up the fancy grapefruit soap Harrow had gifted her for her birthday, then towelled herself dry with such haste that she almost got carpet burns. Her hair was a right mess, way too fluffy and sticking up in all sorts of directions, but at least it was dry, and she went back out into the main room wearing only a towel tucked under her armpits.

Harrow was lying back on the pillows with her hands folded in her lap and her ankles crossed modestly. The top had bunched up a bit so it was displaying an impressive amount of thigh and butt; Gideon swallowed so loudly it seemed to echo from the walls. The comically big pump-top bottle of lube Dulcie had bought them for Christmas was out on the nightstand.

Harrow said, “That was fast. Well done.”

If she hadn’t been turned on before, she was now. Discovering how easily affirmation and praise went right to her head had been a revelation, but one they didn’t often exploit because Gideon wanted it to stay special, and Harrow didn’t want it to lose potency (her words). Judging by Gideon’s reaction to a simple ‘well done,’ she needn’t have worried.

“Do I pass inspection?” she asked, to fill the silence, and dropped the towel. She may or may not have flexed her abs, just to remind Harrow what she was getting.

Harrow’s dark eyes widened. The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip. “Not bad,” she conceded. “Come here then.”

Gideon crossed to the bed and, not waiting for further invitation, knelt on the mattress with her legs bracketing Harrow’s hips. It was a horrible angle for kissing, but she made it work, scooting back a bit and bending down to capture Harrow’s bottom lip between her own. She’d been out all day, hard at work, she was hungry in a way that no amount of soup could satisfy, and she’d been greeted by an All You Can Eat Buffet just waiting for her. Without breaking the kiss, she framed Harrow’s sharp, angular face with her hands and tilted her head back a little for better access and swept her tongue inside her mouth, enjoying the way Harrow leaned into her touch. She could do this for hours, she thought, just kissing her girlfriend as if there was nothing else they should be doing. It wasn’t like they hadn’t gotten plenty of practice in by now — she knew exactly how to make Harrow melt, or moan, or sigh, and Harrow was relentlessly stoking the flames with her tongue and lips and teeth — but just because it was predictable and safe didn’t mean it wasn’t still one of her favourite things to do.

Gideon moved her attention to the line of Harrow’s jaw, following it up to the soft spot behind her ear, nibbling on her earlobe as she passed it. She could smell her own shampoo in Harrow’s hair, and that definitely did something for her she wasn’t going to examine right now, because her neck was right there, unprotected and inviting, and Gideon couldn’t resist licking down the column of Harrow’s throat to the hollow between her collarbones.

Harrow’s hands had come to rest on Gideon’s waist, her fingertips digging into her back, and Gideon felt her shift underneath her. Her breath hitched as Gideon scraped her teeth along the neckline of the tank top where it met her skin, but it wasn’t until Gideon started shifting the fabric aside that her grip tightened painfully and Gideon stopped, sitting back on her heels.

“Too much?” she asked, putting her hands up so their only point of contact was Gideon’s legs on either side of Harrow’s.

Harrow nodded, her cheeks flushed. “Give me a minute,” she said, adjusting the top again. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Sorry, babe. Got carried away.”

“It’s okay, I just — I planned this, you see.”

Harrow liked plans, and she liked her plans to work. She also liked being in control in bed, which was fine with Gideon, so she waited for her girlfriend’s breathing to return to normal before she held her hands out, palms up, presenting herself. “How about this,” she said. “You tell me what you need, and I’ll do it. All of this” — she made a gesture that encapsulated all of her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes — “completely at your disposal. Does that work for you?”

It definitely worked for Gideon, because when Harrow considered the offer and gave one of her imperial little nods, the _frisson_ of anticipation almost knocked her sideways. Harrow chewed on her lip for a moment, then said, “Switch places with me.”

The bed wasn’t big enough to accomplish this with much grace, but eventually Gideon stretched out on top of the covers, naked as the day she was born, while Harrow directed her to spread her legs wide enough that she could sit between them. She raised her eyebrows when she saw how wet Gideon was already, just from the anticipation.

“Excited, aren’t we?” she said, resting her hands on Gideon’s thighs, very much not touching her where she wanted it most.

Gideon had long given up pretending to be cool when they were like this. For one, she was bad at pretending, and for another, seeing how much it pleased Harrow to please her was at least half the fun of doing it in the first place. When she was in control, Harrow shed some of the ballast she was still working through about letting herself be seen and touched and tasted so she could devote herself to the task at hand — in this case, apparently, driving Gideon completely mad with want. Her thumbs rubbed small circles on the smooth skin of Gideon’s inner thighs, with a rhythm that might have been soothing in any other situation but just made Gideon painfully aware of where she wasn’t being touched. Harrow swept her hands down to Gideon’s knees and back up past her hips to rest on her stomach, still drawing circles with her thumbs. She fit her fingers into the gaps between Gideon’s ribs and teased at the underside of her tits, which made Gideon shiver.

Harrow leaned in close. “Put your hands above your head,” she whispered in Gideon’s ear, “and keep them there unless I say otherwise.”

Gideon obeyed without thinking, grabbing hold of fistfuls of pillow. They had learnt through experience that it was easier for her not to break and reach for Harrow without thinking if her hands were otherwise occupied, but the secondhand IKEA bed frame probably wouldn’t hold up if she was tied to it, so the poor pillows had to put up with it. It didn’t hurt that this pose made her arms look _fantastic_.

Finally, Harrow deigned to touch her nipples, tracing those same circles before gently pinching between her thumbs and forefingers. Gideon very deliberately let out a breath, mentally counting to five.

“I’m going to make you come first,” Harrow announced, matter-of-fact, shimmying down the mattress to get into position. “Plant your feet, knees out. Thank you. Breathe in for me.”

Her short hair tickled the inside of Gideon’s thighs, and then she brushed a kiss into the crease of her hip and set her lips against her cunt, tentative at first, but when Gideon twitched she swatted at her leg and told her to be patient. “I’m not rushing into this,” she said, accentuating the statement by lifting her head and robbing Gideon of all contact. “I need you to behave. Can you do that?”

Eyes screwed shut, Gideon nodded. “I’ll be good.”

“Of course you will be. Now relax, or this won’t work.”

Gideon relaxed. Focusing on breathing evenly, she let Harrow warm her up with slow and deliberate strokes, building up the fire of her want until it roared high and hot within her. She wanted desperately to move, to roll her hips and chase Harrow’s mouth to increase the pressure, but she hadn’t been told to, so she didn’t. Her abs and thighs burnt with the effort of holding still and she wasn’t going to last much longer without either moving or —

“You can come,” Harrow murmured against her clit, and Gideon let the flames consume her. Harrow guided her through it with gentle, even strokes, her thumbs taking up those rhythmic circles again to keep Gideon anchored in her body. “Well done. How do you feel?”

Gideon hummed, a low vibration from deep in her chest. “You know, I think you missed your calling,” she said, raising her head to meet her gaze. “You clearly should be spending your days going down on people.”

Harrow said, “Shush,” and averted her eyes, but the corners of her mouth twitched. The bottom half of her face was glistening.

“Come up here? Please?”

With a sigh, Harrow pushed herself up so she was leaning over her with one arm on either side of her head, but they both knew that she wouldn’t be able to hold that for very long. When Gideon moved to lick her chin clean, she sighed again and lowered herself down to lie on top of her, legs tangled together, and let herself be kissed. She was warm and solid on Gideon’s chest, barely even poking her in the ribs, and Gideon thought she could quite happily die right then and there.

Unfortunately, or perhaps the opposite, Harrow had a plan. She extracted one of the pillows from the mountain at the top of the bed and made Gideon lift her hips so she could have a better angle, and went to wash her hands again.

“We don’t have to do this,” she said as she returned to her place between Gideon’s legs. “I know it was my idea, but —”

“Harrow. Mistress of Doom. I want to try.” The last time they’d made the attempt had ended badly, because Gideon hadn’t been ready and Harrow had panicked, but Gideon really wanted to try again. She’d done some reading and she knew that Harrow had, too, and there was no time like the present, right? “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

Of course, it wasn’t quite that easy. Harrow made her repeat her safeword (”Aubergine.” - “I really wish you’d picked a different vegetable, Griddle.”), got a generous blob of lube, and spent at least ten minutes just running her fingers up and down Gideon’s cunt before she even deigned to slip one inside her.

“How is this?” she asked, using her free hand to put some much-needed pressure on Gideon’s clit.

Gideon’s back arched off the mattress, instinctively chasing the sensation. “Not enough,” she said, trying not to sound as desperate as she was. “I’m not made of glass.”

“Patience,” Harrow repeated, not for the first or last time, and added a second finger.

That was better; that was good, just enough to feel it, but not enough to stretch around. Harrow’s hands were tiny, compared to her own, and they usually went further just in the normal course of things, but even though she looked calm and determined, Harrow was clearly nervous. Gideon dropped her head back in the pillows and tried to be patient, with very little success. By the time she got to the third, she was moaning through gritted teeth, trying to grind down against Harrow’s hand.

“Please,” she said, because she was not too proud to beg.

Harrow said, “Oh, very well,” and Gideon dropped over the edge, clenching around her fingers, letting the orgasm wash over her like the sea in a storm.

When her breathing returned to normal, Harrow asked, “Are you done?” She hadn’t removed her hand, but she had the expression of a teacher just waiting for her student to finish a tantrum, all furrowed brows and thin lips.

“Sorry. We can keep going.” She really was sorry. She wanted this to work, and it wouldn’t do to derail the plan any further. But the second orgasm could only have helped; Gideon felt relaxed in that heavy, boneless way that makes every movement feel slow and lazy.

With a deep breath, Harrow shook her head. “No, don’t apologise. I should have asked. And I like watching you come,” she admitted, blushing furiously. “You get that look on your face.”

If she hadn’t been so thoroughly mellowed out, and if Harrow hadn’t looked so adorable sitting there with half her hand buried inside her, Gideon might have teased her about that, or at the very least needled her until she elaborated, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She felt slightly beside herself, as if she was watching both through her own eyes and from the outside; Harrow, kneeling on the mattress, Gideon, lying prone with her legs spread wide and a dreamy, far-off expression on her face.

“Hey,” she said, “you know I love you, right?”

Harrow reached for the lube and added another pump to her hand. “I do,” she said simply. “I love you too. Now relax for me.”

She resumed the light teasing on Gideon’s clit, just to keep her going, while she gently rocked her fingers back and forth to ease her into the next step. The lube was cold and Gideon tensed up when it touched her, but Harrow made a noise like she might use to calm a skittish animal and slowed down, focusing on the movements of her free hand, until she relaxed again. “Are you ready?”

“Hmm.”

“Use your words, Griddle.”

Words were a lot of effort; Gideon managed a “yes” then almost bit her tongue when Harrow pushed another finger inside her, slow but steady. She was definitely feeling it now, but it felt amazing, like stretching after a workout; she closed her eyes again and let herself really focus on the sensation. She was vaguely aware of the heat in her chest and the handfuls of pillow bunched up in her fists, but that was distant, as though through a veil. All that mattered was Harrow’s hand on her, and Harrow’s hand inside her, and the tension rising low in her belly like a thundering flood.

“Keep breathing,” Harrow said, “that’s it. There you go. You’re doing so well.”

“Fuck,” Gideon said, eloquently.

She felt the pressure of Harrow’s thumb as she pushed in, then almost overwhelming fullness.

“Oh,” Harrow breathed, “well done. Good girl.”

Her breath escaped from her lungs in one long hiss, and she had to gasp for air to tell Harrow not to stop, to keep moving, because she wanted to explore this, to sink into it, to stop thinking and completely submit to it. She lost track of everything after that, because it was impossible to tell one sensation apart from another in the haze of pleasure and surrender, trusting Harrow to know what she was doing. She knew she was babbling incoherently, Harrow’s name and “fuck” and “please”; she could not have cared less.

“I’m so proud of you,” Harrow was purring, in between gentle movements of her wrist that felt like the Earth tilting off its axis, and then Gideon was gone.

The first thing she was conscious of afterwards was Harrow’s right hand on her knee, the left still inside her. “Talk to me, beloved.”

“’M okay. That was — fuck.”

“I’m going to remove my hand now. Tell me if it’s uncomfortable.”

They went slowly; they figured out that it was easier with another sensation to focus on, so Harrow took up her teasing again, but mostly Gideon just missed how perfectly she had fit, and had to get over the strange sensation of loss as she withdrew. She lay panting on the bed when it was done, feeling empty, while Harrow heaved herself to her feet and went to get a washcloth. She cleaned them both up with aching tenderness, pausing every so often to squeeze Gideon’s hand or press a brief, almost chaste kiss to her chapped lips. She made Gideon drink an entire glass of water, too, before grabbing the extra blanket from the closet and fitting herself against her side.

Turning to nuzzle the top of her head, Gideon said, “What about you?”

Harrow laced their fingers together under the blanket. “Later,” she said, running her other palm up and down the front of Gideon’s body. The movement and pressure soothed the nervous energy still crackling on her skin and helped her mind settle down enough to form more coherent thoughts.

“That was incredible,” she said. “You were incredible. We need to do that again.”

She felt Harrow’s smile against her shoulder. “You liked it, then? I could hardly tell.”

Ordinarily, that would have earned her a jab in the side, but Gideon was too spent to move. “Thanks, Harrow. For trying that with me.”

“You’re welcome. Thank you for letting me try.”

“I’m going to fall asleep now, I think,” Gideon warned, suppressing a yawn, and before Harrow could respond, her eyes drifted closed and felt too heavy to open again.

**Author's Note:**

> Bless the kink meme for giving me too many ideas - I can't remember ever having this many WIPs!
> 
> This one ended up sort of escalating into an actual AU idea, so I might end up writing the backstory at some point. 
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](https://darlingofdots.tumblr.com/)!


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